


USS Skyfall

by SvengoolieCat



Series: Sven's 007Fest 2018 [3]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Star Trek
Genre: 00Q with shades of Spirk, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, Canon-Typical Violence, James Bond in space, M/M, Skyfall Remix, Slow Burn, Snark, Star Trek AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-05 08:58:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15167186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SvengoolieCat/pseuds/SvengoolieCat
Summary: Prompt fill: Star Trek AUIn which some of your favorite Bond characters are reimagined as a crew aboard the USS Skyfall, captained by none other than the infamous Captain James Bond. When the Skyfall intercepts a distress signal from a science research outpost, they quickly realize that nothing is as it seems and they're in hot pursuit of a terrorist bent on revenge.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So there's really only two fics in this fandom that I could find that would be a straight-up Star Trek AU, and I thought, well, someone should fix that. Um. So I did. And sitting on the secret that I was writing this fic damn near killed me, lol. (I guess I should say that I get nothing but enjoyment from playing in the James Bond and Star Trek universes?)

 

 

“Captain, we’re receiving a deep space transmission.”

Captain James Bond swiveled in his command chair. Lt. Cmdr. Eve Moneypenny had both hands on her controls, listening and adjusting whatever was in her headset with a look of intense concentration. Whatever message she’d received didn’t please her, and that was cause for concern. Meticulous and intense, Moneypenny was probably one of the scariest and most competent women he knew. He once saw her put a Klingon on his ass when he made the bad decision to comment on hers. If she wasn’t happy, Bond thought he wasn’t going to be, either.

“Who is it from?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s staticky, but I think it might be a distress call.”

“Put it through.”

“ _This is—requesting assistance—tack!-…Surrounded. Need help—”_ the transmission fizzled out.

“I’m sorry, that’s the best I can get, sir.”

“I’m scanning for the origin of the transmission,” said Commander Q. “I believe it is coming from a small planet called Althusee.”

“Why does that sound familiar?” asked Bond.

“There is a scientific outpost there, Captain.” The Vulcan looked nonplussed. “However, the outpost is very close to Romulan space. I thought they had all been evacuated, but perhaps I was wrong.”

“Ms. Galore, new heading. Warp Three. Let’s go see if we can help.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Ms. Moneypenny, please inform Starfleet Command that we’re going to render aid to Althusee and request further information on the installation.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Very good.” Bond settled back into his chair, content to watch the star field zoom by in one of the few quiet moments they got aboard the Intrepid-class starship, the USS _Skyfall_. It seemed like every week there was a new disaster to prevent or fix. He felt more than heard the movement by his side. Although it would steam his Vulcan ears if Bond ever said it out loud, Q was a sneaky shit when he meant to be.

“Captain, I feel impelled to warn you that this could well be a trap.”

“That would just make it a normal Monday, Q,” Bond said.

“I fail to see what the day has to do with it,” Q said. “But I feel extra caution is warranted, considering the proximity to Romulan territory.”

“The Romulans haven’t caused much trouble lately.”

“That,” said the Vulcan drily, “is what concerns me.”

“Noted, Q.” Bond smiled up at the Vulcan, wondering for the thousandth time what the man’s face would look like if he ever returned the smile. Would the expression be ghastly and look alien on Q? Somehow Bond didn’t think so. The Vulcan’s features were fine-boned and slim. Bond wouldn’t call him handsome, but he did have a certain arresting quality, especially during those rare times when he could be convinced to untwist a little for a moment.

Maybe it was a good thing. The last thing Bond needed to be was deeper in fascination with his first officer. Particularly since he sometimes got the impression that the fascination might not be unrequited, but returned in equal measure.

Q arched an unimpressed eyebrow and returned to his station, padding as softly as his pet cat. Ostensibly, he kept the beast because he claimed that even in space, vermin were a fact of life. Bond thought that was a crock of shit. Bond had caught him cross-legged on the floor, playing with the cat with little stuffed squeaky mice more than once. Q doted on his cat in his own very Vulcan way and kept it in his quarters most of the time.

“Approaching the outpost, Captain,” called Lt. Galore. Catherine “Pussy” Galore was a tall, shapely woman with short hair and the sort of unimpressed, no-nonsense demeanor that meant she’d make captain someday, if you could pry her away from the helm. She was one of the best pilots in Starfleet and had been at the academy at the same time as Bond. He’d met her at a party, and then accidentally introduced her to her future wife and co-pilot, Gala, who he’d been casually dating at the time. By the end of the night, he wasn’t dating Gala anymore. Bond had no hard feelings. He promptly took up with a guy named Tiger Tanaka for a few months and that was that.

“Yellow alert,” Bond said. “Onscreen.”

The image of the outpost shimmered onto the screen as Bond felt the very slight vibration of the ship dropping from warp to impulse. From the outside, nothing looked amiss. Bond frowned.

“No life signs, Captain.” Q sounded faintly puzzled. “There should be at least ten people stationed here. I don’t see any indications of attack.”

“Hail them, Ms. Moneypenny.”

“Aye.” She sent the standard identification and greeting three times, then shook her head. “No response, captain.”

Bond drummed his fingers on the armrest. “Well then, we’ve tried knocking. Perhaps we should just pick the lock. Bond to Dr. Leiter.”

“Leiter here, sir.”

“Grab your med kit. We’re going to make a house call.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

The moment that Bond reintegrated from the transporter, he knew something was wrong. Well, he smelled something wrong—death, blood, and shit. There was one body in the transporter room with them, slumped over the console. The facility lights were dimmed to a quarter and flickering. Emergency power-reserve settings, he guessed.

He supposed that answered one question. In the next spot over, Q sniffed and visibly recoiled. Bond had a moment of pity for the Vulcan. Vulcans had a sensitive nose in general and weren’t overly fond of the smell of live humans, so as offensive as Bond found the permeating stench of decomposition, for Q the smell would be even worse.

Dr. Felix Leiter was already brushing past Bond, tricorder out and scanning the corpse. The Texan was the sort of man who was inherently cranky about life in general and had no problems grousing at the world, but he was fearless and calm in the face of a medical emergency. Right now, his lips were pursed in a thin line as his dark eyes flickered over scanner readings he didn’t like.

“They’re all dead, Jim. I don’t read any life signs down here,” he said grimly. He hoisted the tricorder up and spun slowly in place. He breathed in and out through his mouth, looking otherwise unbothered by the stench. He drifted around the body, donning a mask and sani-gloves before he touched anything.

“What killed them?” Bond moved to a wall console and tapped it. The computer chimed to life.

“I’ll need to do an autopsy to be sure, but this man was murdered. He looks like he put up a fight.” Felix examined the dead man’s knuckles, cracked and coated with dried black blood.

The away team looked at each other.

“Let’s split up,” Bond said. “Felix, Ronson you go left. Q, you and I will go right, and let’s see if we can find an explanation for what happened here.”

Leiter looked dour. “We encounter a bunch of suspicious deaths in a scary, half-lit station and ‘Let’s split up,’ says the white guy who’s clearly never seen a horror movie in his life. Fan-tas-tic,” he drawled. He stomped off to the left, Ensign Ronson following with a grin, phaser at the ready.

Q ignored the entire exchange. His nose was already stuck in his tricorder, and he was walking off to the right with nary a word to Bond. He was moving lightly again, making the most of the quietness of his soft-soled boots. He looked…predatory. It was really the only word that described him in the moment, and it reminded Bond of his childhood, being taught to track and hunt on his family estate. Bond himself could be quick on his feet, but beside the nearly silent Vulcan he felt like a moose. It made him wonder about Q—Bond had met many Vulcans in his time, but Q was damn peculiar.

Bond kept his phaser at the ready, one eye on the Vulcan who really did seem to be _hunting_ , for lack of a better word, and kept aware of their surroundings in case something wasn’t as dead as they thought. Leiter hadn’t been too far off in comparing the place to a horror movie. The occasional splashes of blood on the floors and walls were a dull black in the dim, flickering light. Q halted in front of a door and scanned it cautiously.

“The command center should be here. It would lock down in the event of an emergency,” Q said, quietly. He didn’t bother whispering—after all, they were supposed to be alone—but even so, the low tones seemed loud in the stillness. He crouched in front of the keypad and started bypassing the locking mechanism until the red light switched to green. The door still didn’t open.

Bond figured he might as well be good for something, and he handed the phaser to Q and hooked his fingers in the door and tried to pry them apart. They squeaked and gave only about a quarter of an inch. “It won’t open,” he grunted, straining his muscles.

“Of course it will. Put your back into it,” Q said. Out of the corner of his eye, Bond saw him engrossed in his tricorder again.

“You come here and put your back into it,” he snapped.

The slender Vulcan obligingly holstered the tricorder on his own belt and pressed Bond’s phaser back into his hands. With a tiny huff of effort, Q pried the doors apart enough to wedge himself into the threshold and shove them open the rest of the way. Bond just stared.

“Captain,” Q said, gesturing into the room with an Old-World courtliness that set Bond’s teeth on edge. There were times when he got the feeling that the impassive Vulcan really did have a wicked sense of humor and enjoyed tweaking Bond’s nose.

“Commander,” Bond returned, in the same even tones.

The worst of the carnage was in the command center.

“How many people were supposed to be here, again?” Bond asked. The stench of decomposition was overpowering.

“Reports say ten. It’s a very small research institution.” Q pulled a body off a console and stepped over it, his pale face taking on a distinctly green tinge as his fingers danced over the control panel. The installation whirred to life around them, lights coming up to 50%, the air circulation clicking on, and the sleeping monitors waking.

Bond counted five bodies. Added to the one in the transporter room, only four were unaccounted for, then.

He stood over the Vulcan’s shoulder, watching as those confident fingers cracked open the system and got the cobwebs out.

“Fascinating,” Q murmured. “It seems that there’s more to this science outpost than meets the eye.” He moved to the neighboring console and worked on them both.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Bond said. “The bodies are a pretty clear indicator.”

“No,” Q swiveled a screen so Bond could see better. “This is a spy installation. I’d need Ms. Moneypenny to look at this to confirm, but they seemed to be scanning all frequencies for deep space communications.”

“They were spying on the Romulans?” Bond guessed. “I suppose those satellites in orbit aren’t entirely focused on recording geological activity.”

“You would be correct, Captain,” Q said. “Their scientific data is surprisingly easy to access. But when I do this to try and access these odd-looking files here—” the screen flashed _Access Restricted_ , “these protocols start. They’re very complex for a geological survey team, and a couple terraform experts. This is like an old Earth Rubik’s cube that fights back. There are a dozen people in the Alpha Quadrant capable of this.”

Q set his shoulders and flipped through screens fast enough to make Bond’s eyes ache. “Can you break them?” he asked.

“I invented them.”

Bond grinned and left Q to his battle. He circled the room with his own tricorder and looked at everything. He identified the bodies, using the crew complement and visual recognition. He identified the young terraform specialist, Strawberry Fields slumped over her console; a physicist called Dr. Christmas Jones, who Q had moved; and a geologist James Moloney. They all seemed to have died at their posts and were either slumped over their desks or curled under them. Two died in the middle of the room, one identified as the leader of the team, named White. The other was a  woman that the installation manifest had listed as his daughter, a psychologist Madeleine Swann. The pools of blood had long dried. At first it looked like violence because White’s hand was on Swann’s throat, but something bothered Bond about the look of it.

“Q, Leiter said that the man in the transporter room was murdered, but fought back, right?”

Q hummed distracted assent.

“So why isn’t there any sign of violence here? All this blood, but do you see any injuries? Stab wounds, blunt-force traumas, phaser blasts? They all look like they bled from all their orifices, but there don’t appear to be any other wounds.”

The Vulcan paused and looked at Bond, who was crouching over the two bodies. The dark green eyes swept over Bond and then the bodies at his feet. “He was checking her pulse,” Q observed.

“Right.” Bond stood up and looked around with a critical eye. “We need to know what they were working on when they died. And how. Maybe they had some side experiments. Chemical, sound waves, radiation.”

Q nodded. He got back to working on the protocols, inserting a removeable drive to copy what he found. Bond checked each console in case the researchers had died too quickly to log out of the system. Although, chances were high that the system would automatically log out after a certain amount of time, especially if the installation went into crisis mode. Still, it didn’t hurt to be thorough.

“I’m in,” Q announced.

Bond peered over Q’s shoulder again. “Definitely looks like illegal espionage,” Bond said.

“All espionage is illegal.”

Bond resisted the urge to reach out and tweak a pointy ear like an old schoolmarm. “Yes, but this is strictly prohibited by the peace agreements signed by the Federation and Romulan Empire.”

“I can guarantee there is a base similar to this one over the Romulan border,” Q said.

“Not the point, Q.”

On sharp eyebrow lifted. “Is this another human moralizing crisis?”

“Can you tell me honestly that this breach in the treaty—in the rules—doesn’t bother you?”

Q thought about it for a moment. “Whether it bothers me or not is irrelevant. Logic dictates that in the interest of security and accountability, intelligence measures will be taken by both parties, if only to confirm that the other side is upholding their side of the bargain.” The Vulcan side-eyed Bond. “Can _you_ honestly tell me that you are surprised or bothered by this?”

“No,” Bond grudgingly admitted. “No, I’m not.”

Q turned to face Bond, but he didn’t move away from his Captain’s space. His expression was distant and as vexed as the Vulcan ever got. “What does ‘bother’ me is this: If these people did not kill each other, who murdered the man in the transporter room, and why?” Q asked.

Bond angled in closer as well. “Furthermore, why did the message say they were under attack, if they weren’t? I haven’t noticed any trace of Romulans, or any other intruder. Have you?”

“I have not. Perhaps a body count is in order,” Q said.

Bond grinned like a shark at his first officer, feeling the pulse of adventure in his veins. Few things were better than the thrill of solving a mystery with a trusted and intelligent comrade at his side. “My dear Q, I concur.”

The two of them reached for their phasers at the same time and pointed them at the door in unison.

“You don’t suppose that we might be locked in with a maniac, do you?” Bond asked. They heard the distant sounds of shouting.

“It would not be ideal.”

Q retrieved his drive and the two of them followed the sounds of the altercation down the corridor. Bond ran full tilt, knowing that Q would be on his heels.

Leiter was bending over Ronson, who had blood pouring from his ears, nose, and eyes. He clutched Leiter’s blue uniform and stared at him, unseeing. Leiter looked up at Bond and Q with solemn, dark eyes. “He’s dead, Jim. Leiter to _Skyfall_. Beam us all directly to Sick Bay.”

Bond opened his mouth to protest, but he was already dematerializing.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Captain’s Log, star date 2268.12.1532:

_“The mystery surrounding the Althusee outpost thickens. Dr. Leiter has determined that eight of the crew were killed with an experimental noxious gas, while one crewman appears to be murdered violently. Right now, we have more questions than answers and chief among those is: where is the missing tenth crewman?_

_Felix ran us through a battery of tests and Q and I were lucky enough to come away unscathed. Ensign Ronson was not so lucky and was accidentally exposed to an experimental gas when a vial was broken. Let the record show that he was a fine officer who died in the line of duty. We will do our best to solve the mystery, so his death is not in vain.”_

Bond clicked off the recorder just shy of mentioning the information that Q had recovered from the outpost. After years of mostly-faithful log entries about the exploits of the _Skyfall_ , Bond’s old instincts for subterfuge stopped him from even voicing his thoughts on the matter of a spy installation in an official capacity.

The door of his ready room chimed. “Come in,” he called.

Gareth Mallory stepped inside, a padd in his hand. He held it out to Bond. “We swept the entire outpost with sensors and physically double-checked. You were right, only nine bodies, when there should be ten.”

Bond reviewed the information. His security officer was a quiet, thorough man. It seemed hard to believe that during the first year of Mallory’s posting, Bond had been irritated by his very existence. Thought him a toffee-nosed bureaucrat who liked paperwork a little too much (he and Q had that in common) and that he was too much of a law-abiding citizen to tolerate Bond’s occasional side-adventures. And while Mallory was indeed all these things, he also had a pragmatic sort of air about him, one that told Bond that if it came down to saving Bond or saving the ship, Bond would be shit out of luck.

He respected those priorities.

“Any ideas?”

“Well, he’s not hiding in the air ducts,” Mallory said, deadpan. The security chief looked like he wanted to sit down, but he’d been down in the outpost half the day and smelled like death, so he courteously remained standing at a distance. “None of the shuttles were missing, either.”

“It all comes back to the man killed in the transporter room,” Bond mused.

“If we are considering this as an inside job, I would say that he had a getaway ride. Q’s working on the transporter logs now, but they were badly corrupted,” Mallory said.

“Thank you, chief.”

Mallory nodded, and stepped out.

His communicator chirped. “Captain, you have an incoming message from Starfleet Command,” said Moneypenny.

Bond sighed. “Put it through.”

His console flared to life, and the crankiest old bat Bond had the pleasure of knowing glowered at him. “What the hell have you been doing, James Bond?”

“Hello to you. I’m fine, thanks for asking. How’s the weather look from your throne in hell?”

“Bond.” Admiral Mansfield, widely known as M, had that tone of voice he remembered from his Academy days, and it meant that he was about to end up scrubbing toilets if he didn’t shape up. He closed his mouth and made the effort to look contrite.

“Why are you at the Althusee Outpost?” she asked.

“We intercepted a distress call and came to see if we could render any aid.”

“And could you?”

“No. Almost everyone is dead.”

“Almost?”

“There were ten people stationed here, but we only found nine bodies.”

M’s face got a particularly pinched look that never meant good things. “Were they murdered?”

“We’re trying to establish that, ma’am,” Bond said. “They were not under any attack that we can determine, despite the distress call.”

“Was Raoul Silva among the dead?” The old woman had a shuttered expression that Bond couldn’t parse.

“No, he’s the one who’s missing. We don’t know if he is the perpetrator or if he was abducted.”

She was silent as she collected her thoughts. Bond waited. In his mind, it tracked that if this was a spook installation she’d be the one who knew about it. During the war with the Romulans, both cold and active, she’d distinguished herself as someone who would toe any legal or moral line (if not actually step over it) to achieve her goals. The only thing that saved her from court-martial was that in a lot of people’s minds, she’d saved their collective asses in the war.

“He wasn’t abducted,” she said. “If anything, he’s likely to be the mastermind behind everything. He was one of my operatives in the cold aspect of the last Romulan-Federation war. Back then, he was known as Tiago Rodriguez.”

“What happened to him?”

“He began operating beyond his brief. At the time, peace was a tenuous proposition at best, and he refused to stop rattling cages. That man brought us to the very brink of war.” M looked Bond in the eye, grim. “I traded him to retrieve several captured operatives and bought us another year of cold peace.”

A part of Bond, the part who had unreservedly given his all to Starfleet and the good of the Federation, was appalled.

Another part understood. He’d been one of M’s handpicked agents once upon a time himself, during the last part of the war. He was under no illusions that she wouldn’t trade _him_ in if the stakes were high enough.

“I thought he died,” she said. “But he always was a snake. He can change his hair and face, but I would know him anywhere.”

“How should we proceed, then?” Bond asked.

“Find him. And kill him,” she said.

“I thought we didn’t do that anymore, M.”

“His true name is already on the Memorial of the Fallen. I should have it struck off. He’s already a dead man,” she said. “He just hasn’t stopped breathing yet.”

The transmission ended.

Bond jammed a few touch-keys on his console, but it wasn’t interference that dropped the call. The old bat had hung up on him. He swore.

The door chimed again.

“Come,” Bond snapped.

Q stepped inside, just enough that the door swept closed behind him. He reached over and touched the locking mechanism on the keypad. Sedate green eyes stared at Bond.

Bond looked from his console to the Vulcan and back. He leaned back in his chair, tipped his head back and stared back at Q. A few observations tumbled into place and a few things began to make more sense about his first officer.

“You’re one of hers, aren’t you?” he asked.

Q seemed to take that as permission to come closer. He drifted to the other side of Bond’s desk and took a seat in the visitor’s chair. He steepled his fingers in front of him.

“I am,” Q said. “As are you.”

“I was, during the war. The war is over.”

Q inclined his head and twitched his eyebrows in a very Vulcan gesture of _are you sure about that?_ but otherwise didn’t say anything. Bond heaved a short sigh and put his chin in his palm, fixing his number one with an unflinching blue stare.

“Are you here to keep an eye on me, then? Make sure I don’t go rogue, like Silva.”

“Hardly,” said Q. “Few men are as resolutely loyal to Starfleet as you are. I was one of the agents captured by the Romulans during the war. You know I have a talent for computers and science, and Vulcans and Romulans share a common ancestor. I agreed to go undercover, was betrayed and caught after six months. She negotiated my release.”

Q’s eyes were steady, and he delivered the revelation as calmly as though he were discussing the weather on Risa.

“Was Silva part of that negotiation?” Bond asked.

Q nodded. “I believe so, Captain. They would not have treated him kindly,” he said, quietly. There was a world of knowledge in that sentence, and Bond’s blood turned to ice.

“Do you have any idea where he’ll go now?”

“I did not know him,” Q said. “But since he is not dead, he may well be a Romulan agent working counter-intelligence now. He would be aware of our procedures and at least some of the installations.”

Bond’s communicator chirped. “Engineering to Captain Bond.”

“Go ahead, Mr. Tanner.” Tanner was an unflappable man of middle age and possessed the air of someone who has seen everything and is no longer surprised. That complacency went out the window when it counted, however, and there were few engineers in the ‘Fleet who could work the engine magic that Tanner could. Bond swore that the man had coaxed and charmed the ship into doing the impossible. He also kept a stash of terrible Earth beer in his quarters.

“I tweaked our subspace scanners, and we’re picking up a masked ion trail leading away from the planet,” Tanner said.

Bond was silent. Q was a steady presence, still and silent. “Follow it,” Bond said.

“Leiter to Bond.”

“I’m going to change my name,” Bond sighed at Q, then tapped his communicator. “Bond here. Go ahead.”

“Autopsy results are in. You’re gonna want to see them.”

“On our way.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

The doors to Sick Bay swished open before Bond and Q.

“What do you have for me, Doc?” he asked.

The autopsy had clearly just finished. Leiter drew the sheet over the body and put his tools into a sanitizer. He was wearing a full body hazmat suit, but he lifted a hand in greeting and stepped through the quarantine forcefield shielding his lab. He stripped off the helmet and gloves and handed them off to one of the nurses.

“I’ve been analyzing the gas that killed Ronson,” Leiter said, leading them to his office. “I think I can explain the distress call.”

He indicated a wall-computer and brought up a lot of data that Bond just sort of looked at and nodded sagely when Leiter turned to him with an expectant look. Beside him, Q made a thoughtful noise. Good. At least one of them knew what the hell they were supposed to be looking at.

“I know, disappointing. It’s just a hallucinogenic drug with an added kick to make it deadly. They probably did think they were under attack, especially with all the bleeding from orifices. If all the bodies were accounted for, I’d say that it was an accident.”

“But?”

“But one got away, violently. I’d say this was less of an accident and more of a test run. I went the extra mile and analyzed the air system. It was circulated throughout the entire compound, and it didn’t take much.” Leiter looked grim. “One of the breathing masks was missing from the lab. I assume our perpetrator wore it.”

“Why did Ronson die while we survived?” Bond asked.

“I was wearing a mask,” Leiter said. “Ronson got a face full of the gas, but my mask filters air and contagions, and that probably saved my life. I may never leave home without it ever again. And we beamed back quickly enough that you probably just felt queasy and discombobulated for an hour or so.”

“We might add masks to the away team kits,” Bond said. “Good work, Felix.”

Leiter nodded. “I hope we catch the bastard before he decides he needs a larger sample size.”

Bond left Sick Bay with Q on his heels again. “You know the one thing that bothers me?” Bond asked, stalking down the corridor fast enough that Q had to work to keep up with him. He called the lift and waited in front of closed doors.

“Captain?”

“I feel like I’ve been left out of the game. M wants Silva dead. What if the opposite is also true? How much do you want to bet that Silva wants revenge?”

“I don’t gamble,” Q said. He held up a hand to forestall Bond’s next words. “But if I did, I’d take those odds.”

The lift arrived. A lone ensign took one look at the officers and vacated the lift in a hurry.

“Bridge,” Bond called. “One of these days I’m going to teach you poker. You’ll be great at it.”

“If you say so, sir.”

The lift doors hissed open and Bond was striding down to his command chair. “Moneypenny, please locate Admiral Mansfield. And Lt. Galore, take us there, on the double.”

“Aye, Captain,” they chorused.

“Are we expecting trouble?” asked Mallory.

Bond grinned up at him. “Oh, yes.”

“I feel a sudden need to inventory the weapons locker,” Mallory said.

“Good idea. Save me a compression phaser rifle, if you would,” Bond said.

“And a second for me,” Q said, absently. He was already engrossed in some project at his station.

Mallory’s eyebrows almost reached his hairline. “I’ll just hand them out like candy to everyone, shall I?”

“Might as well,” Lt. Galore said. “I wouldn’t say no to one. Who’re we shooting?”

“A terrorist,” said Bond.

“Excellent.”

“Pussy, I’m transmitting you the coordinates now. We’re going to gatecrash a Federation trade summit,” Moneypenny said.

“Sounds like fun.” Lt. Galore gave the console an affectionate pat. “I’m breaking orbit now, and course is laid in.”

“Warp 6 and engage.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“I’ve managed to decode the transporter logs,” Q said.

Bond got up and went to lean over Q’s shoulder. “One adult male human beamed aboard a small vessel in orbit. I have the specs, and the bio signature confirms him as Raoul Silva, also known as Tiago Rodriguez. I’ve run both names through the databases. Reports say that one of his closest known associates is a woman named Severine, a smuggler.”

“His getaway driver?”

“Most likely.”

Lights on the bridge started flickering.

“What’s happening?” asked Q. “Why is it doing that?”

The ship jolted, and Bond steadied himself on the back of Q’s chair to keep his footing.

“We’ve dropped out of warp, Captain. The engines are offline.” Galore’s fingers danced over her console, lightning fast. “They’re not responding. I don’t understand.”

The stars disappeared from the viewscreen, replaced by a sugar skull and the words: NOT SUCH A CLEVER BOY. Red alert klaxons started up, and the emergency lights flashed.

“Environmental controls and life support are off,” reported Moneypenny.

“Oh, shit,” Q breathed. Bond nearly fell over to hear his uptight Vulcan first officer swear like a dockyard worker. “We’ve been hacked.”

Q took a deep breath and yanked his portable drive out of the console and went back to furiously hacking his way through ship systems, trying to stop or contain the malware.

“Q?” Bond asked. “What are you doing?”

The Vulcan _hissed_ at him. Like a cat.

“Tanner to Bond. _What the hell_ are you lunatics doing up there to my beautiful ship?”

“We’re not sure but we’re working on it. Status?” Bond asked.

“Everything is going mad, and the warp core is about five minutes from overheating and exploding us all into little bits.”

“I have an idea,” Q said, abruptly.

“Am I going to like it?” asked Bond.

“We need to reboot the systems to reset them.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? You want to turn my ship off and on again?”

Q nodded. “Yes.”

Bond gaped at the Vulcan, one of the most intelligent and—yes, clever—men he knew and couldn’t believe that the solution to a cascading ship-wide systems failure was as simple as unplugging it and restarting the whole damn thing, as though his beautiful state-of-the-art ship was a child’s malfunctioning school tablet.

Bond couldn’t think of a better solution, so he said, “Do it.”

Q tapped his comm badge. “Tanner? I believe the phrase is ‘pull the plug.’”

“Aye, Commander.”

Between Q on the bridge and Tanner in Engineering, the ship plunged into darkness and silence. No light, no background noise of fans circulating the air or the hum of the computers and engines. Even the artificial gravity let go, and Bond clutched the console to keep from drifting. All Bond could hear was the harsh breathing of the officers around him. His other hand found Q’s shoulder, and the usually implacable Vulcan was strung so tightly he felt like corded rock under Bond’s fingers.

Bond had never been on a completely dead ship before. Even the derelicts they sometimes rescued weren’t like this, they usually had emergency protocols. This was like being locked in a mausoleum, alive and forgotten. Bond’s lizard brain noted that they wouldn’t be alive for longer than a couple of hours or so if Q couldn’t get the ship back up and running again. Although, they might be able to buy time with the evac suits. He wondered if any of the emergency signal beacons would be strong enough to call help in time.

With a purring sound, the ship came alive around them, lights and panels blinking as the systems rebooted. The bridge crew’s feet thudded back to the carpet as the gravity kicked back on.

“That’s my girl,” Pussy Galore crooned at the ship. “Engines are responsive. They’re coming back online.”

“The malware is contained, Captain,” Q said. “The ship should be ready to go to warp again in about ten minutes.”

“Good job, all of you. Now let’s go catch this crazy bastard before he gets M.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

The USS _Skyfall_ dropped out of warp on the approach to DS7. Bond was mildly surprised and interested to find that his old friend with benefits, Tiger Tanaka, had been promoted to the rank of the station commander.

“Our slips are full,” Comdr. Tanaka said, a touch apologetically. “Unfortunately, we weren’t informed that you would be at the summit.”

“Neither were we,” Bond said. “We’re in pursuit of a terrorist who we believe has come to disrupt proceedings and assassinate Admiral Mansfield.”

“Those are strong allegations, Captain,” the commander said. He frowned at Bond. “Do you have proof?”

Bond caught Moneypenny’s eye and nodded. “We’re transmitting what we have on a man named Raoul Silva. He’s a bad actor from the war and has an ax to grind,” he said.

The station commander’s eyes shifted from the screen to a console. Tanaka whistled. “I heard about this one,” he said. “I’ll distribute this to my security forces. If he’s on this station, we’ll find him.”

“He might be in possession of a deadly gas. He killed the occupants of an entire outpost, and we believe it was a test run. If that thing gets loose in the station, people will drop like flies.”

Tanaka took a deep breath. “Today just keeps bearing gifts—a station full of ornery diplomats all demanding special treatment, a terrorist with poison gas, and Bond, James-bloody-Bond riding in like death on the pale horse.”

“You always were the poetic sort, Tiger,” Bond said. “Permission to come aboard?”

Tanaka rolled his eyes. “As if I could keep you out. Permission granted. And James? You owe me a drink.”

Bond grinned as the screen went black. Drinks, indeed.

He became aware of his entire bridge crew looking at him with gleaming eyes and suggestive smirks. In Q’s case, a raised eyebrow and an impassive face that bordered on stony. Bond shifted in his chair. “What?”

“Nothing,” Lt. Galore turned back around to face her controls. “He’s still very cute. Didn’t the two of you used to—”

“Yes, thank you, Pussy.” Bond said.

“—come aboard, indeed.” She cackled and made air quotes with her fingers when she muttered, “Drinks.”

“And on that note, I’m going to go hunt a terrorist.” Bond straightened his uniform and marched off the bridge. He didn’t need to turn around to know that Q was on his heels.

As was Moneypenny. Well, that was a turn-up, wasn’t it? “Does anyone on this ship work for me or are all of you M’s ex-spies?” Bond asked.

“Best not ask that,” Moneypenny said. “Probably wouldn’t like the answer.”

 The three of them made their way to the transporter room where Mallory met them with compression phaser rifles and Leiter handed each of them a sani-mask.

“Just in case,” he said. They tucked them into their belts. “Don’t die, please. The paperwork is horrendous.”

Q checked over his weapon with quick, competent fingers and slung it over his back.

“May I also have a standard?” he asked. Mallory didn’t question him but handed over a standard phaser.

Moneypenny checked the sights and slung her own rifle over her shoulder. “I trained as a sniper at the academy,” she said, seeing Bond’s inquiring look. “Won top honors, two years running.”

“Today is just full of surprises. Mallory, please coordinate with the station’s chief of security. See if you can locate Silva’s ship and partner. Energize.”

The ship’s transporter room faded and was replaced with the Station’s.

“He’ll go for M,” Bond said. “So that’s where we’ll go. Moneypenny, did you have any luck getting a hold of M’s handler?”

“I did,” Moneypenny said. “And M was adamant that she wasn’t going to run.”

“Of course, she won’t,” Bond muttered.

The station was packed to capacity with diplomats arriving from all over the Federation, and each one coming with their entourages. DS7 was like a giant sardine can in space. Bond could appreciate the headache that Tiger had to manage. With this many people rubbing elbows, keeping the peace was an exercise in diplomacy itself. In short, the station was the perfect place to blend in or disappear. Finding Silva in this would be like finding a needle in a very grumpy haystack that moved constantly. But at least the three of them blended in well. No one paid a small team of armed Starfleet officers any mind.

At least, no one paid any mind in the beginning. A tremor ran through the deck under their feet, klaxons started blaring as everyone was ordered out of common areas and back to their quarters until the situation was resolved.

Bond’s communicator chirped. He pulled the other two over to the corner while he responded.

“Captain, we located Silva’s ship. It was docked in one of the smaller slips and it just blew up. No casualties, although it appears Silva’s partner Severine was caught in the blast,” Mallory said.

“That explains the excitement. He’s tying up loose ends,” Bond said. “We’re going for M.”

“So’s he, probably,” Mallory said. “I’ll scramble a team, whether she likes it or not.”

“Can you beam her out? Or him?”

“Negative. The summit’s security protocols include shields in every conference room and we can’t get a lock on anyone.”

“Great. We’ll try to disable it, if we can, so standby,” Bond said. “And tell the cavalry to wear masks.” The three of them pelted towards the largest of the conference rooms.

“He blew up his ship?” Moneypenny asked. “That’s one hell of a distraction.”

“He doesn’t intend to run,” Q said. “The getaway ship is superfluous to him now.”

The crowds were thinning, and up ahead Bond saw more security running in the same direction. Something about the tall blond one in the middle bothered him.

“He might be dressed as a guard now, to blend in,” Q said, coming to the same conclusion Bond’s own instincts were screaming.

“Fantastic,” Bond huffed and put on a bit more speed.

Silva seemed to sense that he was being followed. He turned around and his eyes met Bond’s for a split second. Silva smiled and fired off a few shots in their direction, only narrowly missing some civilians who hadn’t yet cleared the deck. Bond swore but kept up the pursuit, bringing his own compression rifle to bear.

“The legitimate security force might mistake us for the threat,” Q said.

“I’ll risk it,” Bond ground out.

They followed the sounds of phaser fire and screams to the conference room. People streamed out as Bond charged in, laying down a steady stream of fire to distract Silva and picking off his henchmen while Q and Moneypenny looked for M.

Q found M first and raised one finger to his lips in a gesture of silence. She looked frazzled, but her blue eyes were flinty and enraged. He glanced over the top of a desk to see Silva and Bond exchanging weapons fire.

“I have an idea,” he said. He caught Moneypenny’s eye. She was hunkered down behind a desk close to the door. Without waiting for input he unslung his rifle and tweaked some settings. He tucked his mask into the Admiral’s hand. “I’ll cover you. Get to Moneypenny and put the mask on.”

While M scrambled, Q fired off a few cover shots with his standard phaser before dropping again.

“Enough!” shrieked Silva. He stood in the middle of the room, a glass vial in his hand. He wore a mask, and his eyes glittered with madness. The conference room fell silent, with nothing but the sharp ozone smell of phaser fire in the air and harsh breathing of those still trapped in the room.

Q gestured to Moneypenny and M to don the masks.

“What about you?” Moneypenny mouthed at him.

Q gave her a very human shrug and a grim expression.

“No one move, or I drop the vial of gas,” Silva said. “But I am a reasonable man. I will gift all of you with your lives if you give me M.”

Q peered over the top of the desk and then dropped to peer around. Bond was wedged behind one of the podiums, a bit singed around the edges but still alive. His eyes slid to Q, and Q pointedly looked at the chairman’s console where the room’s shielding would be controlled. Bond followed his gaze and gave Q a devilish grin. Q slowly blinked once in acknowledgement and held up three fingers.

“Come out, come out, Mother,” crooned Silva. “Surely enough people have died for you. Aren’t you tired of it?”

Q checked the setting on his standard phaser.

“We should both face our sins,” Silva said. “Only then can we be free.”

“You always did like the sound of your own voice,” M grouched from behind a desk. “Free your own damn self.”

Q rapped his knuckles thrice on a desk. He vaulted over the desk and aimed for Silva’s phaser. The weapon exploded in Silva’s hand, eliciting a shriek of pain and rage. At the same time, Bond dove for the console to lower the shields on the room. Q leapt to tackle Silva and the vial while Silva was distracted by his own hand, blackened and now missing a couple fingers.

Silva swore. “Or perhaps not,” he said. “Perhaps a few more should die for your cause.” He threw the vial down on the floor, shattering the glass an inch from Q’s grasping fingers.

Q dropped to the deck like a stone, not moving and trying not to even breathe.

He distantly heard Bond yelling his name, but Q laid limp on the floor, practically at Silva’s feet, blood dripping from his nose.

“So young, and so brilliant,” Silva said, picking up Q’s unused phaser rifle. When he saw the mask Bond was wearing, he rolled his eyes. “And so very dead. What a shame, don’t you think, Bond? I suppose we’ll have to do this the hard way, after all.”

Silva raised the phaser rifle to take aim at Bond and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened. Silva looked at the weapon and jammed the trigger. The phaser backfired, sending currents of electricity into Silva’s hand. His blond hair stood on end, and his body jerked in a grotesque tarantella as the phaser rifle Q rigged to electrocute him did its job. He fell to the floor, twitching with the aftershocks, eyes wide open and unseeing.

Bond scrambled across the room to Q’s side and then his warm hands were on Qs skin, looking for a pulse. Moneypenny and M cautiously rose from behind their table, both wearing their masks.

“Bond to _Skyfall_. Beam us all directly to Sick Bay. Q? Q!”

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

The lights in Sick Bay were too bright, so when Q came around, he just laid there and breathed for a few moments. He heard the soft swish of uniform fabric as the nursing staff moved around Sick Bay, attending to their duties. Beside him, he heard a crackling, rhythmic sound. He cracked one eye open. Bond sat in a chair, feet propped up on Q’s bed, and he idly shuffled a standard deck of earth cards with smooth, practiced movements. Q watched his hands, reflecting that the combination of sound and the sight of the cards being shuffled was meditative. He’d have to ask Bond to teach him how to do that.

“I wanted to teach you how to play poker,” Bond said. “For a little while, I wasn’t sure I’d get the chance.”

Bond didn’t look up from the cards but kept up the mesmerizing shuffle.

“Nasal filter implant,” Q said. He tapped his nose for emphasis. “I estimated it would buy me a little time, and I mostly held my breath once my nose started bleeding.”

Bond huffed a laugh. “The one time the stench of humans works for you?”

“You don’t all smell bad,” Q said. “In general, Starfleet officers have excellent hygiene. And you’ve personally never smelled offensive to me.”

Bond’s hands stuttered on the next shuffle before evening out. “No?”

“No.”

Q could blame his next actions on his near-death experience, on the stress of the past few days. After all, he was a Vulcan, not an automaton. He reached out his nearest hand and very lightly danced his fingertips over Bond’s temple, and through short blond hair. He didn’t reach out telepathically—that would be entirely too forward—but sent the idea of reassurance, like his mother did when he was small. His fingers traced in the soft hair around the shell of Bond’s ear before withdrawing. Q felt Bond unwind a bit.

Bond’s shoulders loosened, and he let loose a breath he’d been holding. Q dearly wanted to reach out and touch Bond again, to see how far he could push this. Curiosity had always been his downfall, and those tantalizing blue eyes were on him now, reflecting that curiosity.

In many ways, they were the ideal command team, Q reflected. Bond was a man of action: fearless and passionate and so very capable. Q was a man of the mind: knowledge and logistics and planned actions. Some might think them opposites, but when push came to shove, Bond could be as detached as any Vulcan and Q could be as reckless as any hot-blooded human. They often arrived at the same conclusions, even if their paths to get there were different, and they balanced each other.

Q let himself contemplate the possibilities. They were already a formidable command team. Would they become even more so if they were more than just effective workmates? Q wondered how he would react if he were suddenly transferred to another ship, and the very idea that he wouldn’t serve, work, and live beside this man was unacceptable. Did Bond think the same? Q rather thought he did.

This time when he reached out, it was less impulse and entirely calculated, and Bond met him halfway. Cards exploded out of Bond’s hands and scattered all over the floor, and Bond was surging out of his chair, lips against his. Q’s fingers twined in Bond’s short hair, feeling Bond press him back against the uncomfortable hospital bed, rough palms cupping his jawline as fingers splayed into Q’s hair. Q would rather go to his grave than admit that the feeling was glorious, but Bond’s heart was pounding under Q’s hand, the tempo matching Q’s.

Felix Leiter saw what his patient and his visitor were up to and stomped over, clearing his throat loudly. They ignored him.

“ _Honestly_ , Jim. This is a sickbay, not a bordello, and I’m a doctor, not your maid. Or your chaperone. There are a million cards all over my floor, and I’m not cleaning them up.” He flapped his hands at Bond who broke away from Q. The captain’s shoulders were vibrating with suppressed laughter, but the Chief Medical Officer was not appeased. “Shoo. Go away. Visiting hours are over. Make out with Q when he’s no longer a patient and needs his rest.”

Bond grinned at Leiter, who crossed his arms and looked chastising, but there was still a humorous light in his eye. Bond was cheerfully unrepentant but thought he could at least make the effort. “Of course, Doctor,” he said meekly, attempting and failing to look properly sorry for his behavior.

“Sure. And you,” he pointed at Q, “go back to sleep. If you behave, I’ll discharge you in the morning and you can go back to doing,” here he gestured at Bond, “whatever. Elsewhere.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Q said. He pulled his blankets back up to his chin, primly folded his hands over his chest, and settled. He appeared perfectly acquiescent, but Leiter caught a spark in Q’s eyes that meant pure trouble. Leiter didn’t let down his guard for an instant.

Whoever said that Vulcans were emotionless, humorless, boring creatures clearly had never gotten to know one, Leiter thought. He felt a tingle of premonition shudder down his spine, the kind of premonition that meant mischief afoot. It wasn’t an uncommon feeling; life aboard the _Skyfall_ was exciting, but these two were forces of nature separately. He could only imagine what shenanigans the two of them together could get them all into.

Bond finished scraping his cards up off the floor, landed an irritating kiss on the Vulcan’s forehead, and sauntered out of Sick Bay, grinning to himself.

The _Skyfall_ remained at DS7 for a few more days. Admiral Mansfield helped straighten out the aftermath and even awarded a commendation to the crew of Skyfall for their service, but she departed for San Francisco within twenty-four hours of the incident.

“Maybe you should slow down a bit,” Bond had said. The M looked tired but resolute, and the expression on her face warned Bond that a good ear-yank was coming his way. “Think about retirement away from spies and mercenaries. Enjoy life for a bit.” He ducked away to put some safe distance between his ears and her fingers when the expression on her face darkened.

“To hell with that. I’ve a job to do,” she’d said. And that had been that.

Bond took the opportunity to schedule some leave for his crew—if he learned nothing else, it was to enjoy downtime whenever he could get it. The extra time also gave him the opportunity to organize a poker game in one of the station’s restaurants, a bar and grill Tiger Tanaka swore had the best food. Most of his senior staff were in attendance, as well as Tanaka.

The last to arrive was Q, undoubtedly because his persnickety nature wouldn’t allow him to sign off his shift until he’d completed his tasks, namely making sure that Silva’s malware was eradicated from the system. Bond had a sixth sense for when Q was near, so he looked up from his trick card shuffling to lock eyes with Q as the Vulcan wove silkily through the crowd to the back table.

Bond had guarded the empty chair next to him all evening and didn’t miss the way Tiger Tanaka looked between them with sudden understanding as to why his offers for a nightcap had been rebuffed.

“Just in time, Q,” Bond said. The Vulcan’s dark green eyes followed his hands as Bond shuffled and then started dealing cards around the table with sure flicks of fingers and wrist, right to left. Q, Tanner, Moneypenny, Mallory, Pussy, Leiter, and Tanaka.

“Poker?” Q asked, picking up his hand.

“Good old Texas Hold ‘Em Poker,” Leiter said. He took his poker seriously and was wearing a Dallas Cowboys ballcap and sunglasses. It looked ridiculous in the dim bar on a space station, but he would not be dissuaded. There was a stack of neatly organized chips in front of him, the winnings from a previous hand.

“Ah,” Q said, and looked at his cards. “Captain, do you mind explaining this to me?”

Bond quickly ran through the suits and card combinations, with Q nodding calmly to show his understanding. “We’ll run a practice hand,” Bond said.

“Thank you,” Q said, placid as a lake on a windless day.

Q won the practice hand.

“Beginners luck,” Felix said.

Q raked in the chips and organized them with deft fingers. “No such thing as luck, Doctor,” he said.

Q won the second hand, and the third, lost the fourth, and won the fifth. By then, Bond was beginning to suspect something amiss.

Moneypenny was on her second cocktail and she finally just started giggling. “Boys, I think you’ve been hustled,” she said.

Leiter peered over his sunglasses at Q, who sedately stacked the chips with deliberate neatness. “I think you’re right,” he said. “No one picks the game up that quickly, not even a Vulcan.”

Q folded his hands in front of him. “I never said I didn’t know how to play poker. I did go to Starfleet Academy and have served on a few ships, after all. Admittedly, it has been some time, and I didn’t learn this game specifically. Although, it appears that if you know one version of poker, the basic skills translate to the others.”

The entire table stared at Q.

Tanner snorted into his beer. “Right, then. Next round is on you, then, laddie.”

Bond looked accusingly at Moneypenny. “What do you mean ‘ _you’ve_ been hustled’? Don’t you mean, _we’ve_ been hustled?”

Q cut a sideways look at Bond as he reached for his glass of Vulcan Brandy, a rare indulgence. The look made the hairs on the back of Bond’s neck stand straight up in the best way. He did so love a challenge and a mystery. And Q was turning into one of the most fun ones.

“Who do you think taught me in the first place?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to wait to string out the next couple of chapters, but then I was like, "meh" and edited them all to post in one go. After all, it is AU week. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this AU! And as always, kudos and comments are welcome.


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